


The seconds between each of your breaths

by zetsubou69



Series: The Scotsman, the Englishman, and the ginger cat [3]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Happy Ending, M/M, Q Has a Cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-09
Updated: 2016-02-09
Packaged: 2018-05-19 08:33:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5960926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zetsubou69/pseuds/zetsubou69
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond went on what was supposed to be a simple mission. Q, among other things, counts the time until his return.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The seconds between each of your breaths

Zero days, thirteen hours and forty two minutes since they last saw each other.

_Pa dam. Pa dam._

Dull, rhytmic sound. Steady. Solid. Everpresent. Escalating.

Then, without a warning, it was gone.

Four twelve in the morning, smart blood software ceased receiving of a signal from agent 007. Four thirteen in the morning, an empty tea mug fell to ground and shattered into pieces.

M turned his head just in time to see his Quartermaster silence his scream of despair, and turn all of his attention to the incorporeal world of electricity.

 

*

 

Long story short, a hard-drive went missing. Not a big one, a tiny one, barely as big as a smartphone. When connected to a computer with internet access (basically any computer nowdays) a homing beacon would be sent to MI6.

A homing beacon was received, and located south of Tallin, Estonia.

"Who the fuck lives in Estonia?" R sighed, as she went to book a plane ticket for Richard Sterling, salesman of Universal Exports and Q went to equip Bond with a radio, a gun, and a watch.

The beacon was shut down by someone that was not Q or MI6, which certainly was a bad sign, since it meant the firewalls on the hard-drive were breached and data were soon to be deciphered and ready for sale.

"Go, find, eliminate the hacker, or the agency. I will personally oversee you, so stay on the coms for as long as possible," Q said to Bond while handing him his kit. Their fingers brushed.

"I'll be back, Phillip, in time for the trip to Paris," Bond promises with a wide self-assured grin and Q smiles back and shushes him, as he's not overly fond of having is name spoken out loud in public.

"Please, return the equipment in one piece." _Please, come back in one piece._

Zero. One. Two. Three...

 

*

 

Zero days, thirteen hours and six minutes.

Estonia is cold, wet, and rainy. Or so Bond complains over the coms when he steals an old car. Someone is going to have a really bad morning when they find out. No fancy car for not a fancy times.

Q laughs warmly, and mentions an old dog caught in the rain.

James would almost, almost be upset, if he wasn't aware he should be retiring soon. His age hangs over him like a scary ghost or a Damocles' sword. Just one more mission, Bond always asked, and Q let him go.

Just a retrieval and elimination. Of course it couldn't be this easy. Even climbing up the warehouse is not easy anymore.

Thousand kilometres from home, with a cold salty Baltic wind hitting his face, he misses his target. The wind was too strong, the bullet too slow, the angle too bad, the crates between them too many.

"He's firing at me, but I'm going to try again. I can make the shot."

He does make the shot.

A bullet he did not fire impacts with his body and sends him falling down to earth from the top of the building.

Bond tastes blood and mud and he feels fucking cold and he welcomes the darkness like an old friend.

 

*

 

There's about a million of nanoparticles coursing through the blood vessels of 007, powered by electricity the human body generates; all collecting data about said body and sending it back to Q's computer. The heartbeat, the bloody oxygen level, the temperature, location.

The screen reports an error and the signal is cut off.

The radio doesn't work, no reply is received no matter how much R shouts at the microphone.

"Gather a clean-up team. Three people should suffice. I want the place clean before any locals - police or else - gets there," Q orders and disappears in his office.

No one asks what to do when they find 007's body.

Approximately fifteen hours since they last saw each other, Q silences his screams of despair with his coat and then he continues to work.

 

*

 

The body of James Bond is not found. But so is not the body of the hacker who broke into the hard-drive. The place is clean and clean up team returns only with the hard-drive itself and the computer used to break into it.

Both M and Q are furious and Tanner invites Eve to a coffee, just so they join forces and get both M and Q drunk later that evening.

The gin is disgusting, and then Alec joins them and brings two bottles of vodka.

Q smells James's soap when Bond's friend stops him in his kitchen, and wraps his arms around the boffin. Q counts seconds and nobody dares to comment on anything, except for Felix who still demands some attention Eve is eventually willing to provide.

"That bastard is still alive. He promised you Paris and you'll get it," Alec promises to Q and he means it.

One day, nine hours, and several minutes.

 

*

 

Seven days and five hours, approximately.

Q fails to count properly.

The signal didn't come back online, yet. The reports are written, MIA status assigned - it was a big argument in M's office after which Q bargained three months, before they will change it to KIA, for the price of taking a fucking day off - M's words, not Tanner's. Q has a Sunday lunch with Tanner's wife and their kids, meets Eve for a drink after work on Monday, and on Tuesday he asks Trevelyan to stop by.

The ex-double-oh agent arrives with a take away dinner and a book.

"I will not play James for you, Phillip," he says as he enters Q's flat.

"I don't want you to," Q replies and goes to make coffee for both of them.

The flat is full of James's belongings but the man himself is yet to be found. Alec makes himself comfortable on the couch and they spend the night in silence.

 

*

 

Fourteen days and counting.

Alec is used to cat sitting Felix by now, almost everyone in MI6 moved on, Q is still counting. There are other missions, other duties, and Q is focused, but when the system comes back online and his smart blood reports Bond in Dover, Q just hands 004 to R, grabs his parka and dials up the clean-up team to get a car and drive him there.

 

*

 

Fourteen days and three hours; what felt like ages later, they reunite.

The shipping crate is lead lined and forms the perfect Faraday cage to null the signal from smart blood or any other tracking device. Bond is lying on a makeshift bed, two bullet holes in his body are amateurishly stitched up. He is exhausted, malnourished and dehydrated, but alive.

"The hacker eventually started to believe that I'm not working for Russia and decided to ship me home slow way. She put some food here but it took it week longer than she said it would take," Bond explains.

When asked how he got out, he replies he simply saved last bullet for shooting it open when no one is around as soon as there's no risk of being dumped into the sea again.

They all laugh, and Q calls him stupid, and then they return home.

 

*

 

Fifteen days since his disappearance, Bond is cleared by medical so he doesn’t simply run away (he still would, old habits die hard), thus he returns home to find Alec cat-sitting Felix.

"You moved in in the meantime?"

"Someone had to remind your man you're a tough bastard to kill, although MI5 wished otherwise. Now they have to pay you like they pay me."

Bond laughs and pets the ginger furball at his feet.

"You're cooking the dinner. Phillip will be home at six and I'm resting," James tells Alec and lies down on the couch, to be joined purring Felix at once.

When Q comes home they're playing Worms and eating pizza (although they left enough for him) and Alec is swearing loudly and James is laughing and home feels good again.

 

*

 

It's sixteenth day since that morning when Q realizes he stopped counting the hours and started counting James's heartbeat instead.

_Pa dam. Pa dam._

Q's fingertips are on James's chest. Rising. Faling. And steady beat beneath.

"You're staring."

Q moves his hand away, but James catches it and lays it back.

"Are you free the next weekend? I booked us a trip to Paris and it seems I have lots of holidays left."

Q completely forgot about their trip. His card got probably charged a lot for not cancelling all the reservations but he did not care at the moment. They both deserved some time off for quite a while, so Q nods.

"I'll see that R is ready to spend day or three without me."

And then he starts counting again.

One, two, three...


End file.
